State Of The Unions

Organized Labor Gained In Connecticut, Lost In Nation Last Year

February 26, 2003|By BARBARA NAGY; Courant Staff Writer

Union membership continued to erode nationally last year, but numbers rose modestly in Connecticut -- apparently because of a new focus on organizing workers in service jobs from hospitals to auto repair shops.

Grass-roots organizing is ``priority one'' for unions in Connecticut these days, said Lori Pelletier, secretary-treasurer of the Connecticut AFL-CIO. ``It's slowly paying off,'' she said. ``Suddenly these things add up.''

It helped, too, that employment remained relatively stable at traditional union strongholds: State and municipal governments did not start cutting jobs until two months ago, and losses at Connecticut's big defense contractors were steepest 10 years ago at the end of the Cold War.

In all, 16.7 percent of Connecticut workers are union members, up from 15.8 percent a year earlier, according to an annual survey released Tuesday by the U.S. Department of Labor. The number of people covered by collective bargaining units rose 5 percent, to 273,000.

Nationally, 13.2 percent of workers were union members, down from 13.4 percent in 2001. Membership peaked in 1983 at 20.1 percent. The U.S. economy has shifted away from industries with a high concentration of union workers, such as manufacturing, said Ron Bird, chief economist with the Employment Policy Foundation in Washington.

There are also more management jobs, workplace conditions are generally improving, and the economy until recently has been healthy -- trends that work against unions.

Connecticut's gains could also be short-lived because thousands of union workers have been laid off by the state as a result of budget shortfalls. But Pelletier is optimistic that many of those people will be recalled to their jobs.

She's also optimistic about prospects for organizing more workplaces. Organizers know that the days of the 1,000-person shop are gone. They've had some big wins, but victories at companies with 10, 20 or 30 employees are much more common.

Pelletier said efforts have included day care centers, distribution facilities and health care operations. Workers at Stop & Shop's grocery-delivery unit in Fairfield County recently voted to organize, she said, as did technical workers at Lawrence & Memorial Hospital in New London.

Unions have also tried unsuccessfully -- so far -- to win over the thousands of service workers at the state's two tribe-owned casinos.

Greg Kotecki, a field representative with the American Federation of Teachers, which represents 700 Lawrence & Memorial maintenance workers, technicians and secretaries, said pressures in the health care industry pushed workers at the hospital to organize. He expects organizing efforts such as that.

``A lot of unions in Connecticut are refocused,'' Kotecki said. They realize they're losing their traditional membership as manufacturing declines, and know they have to build a new base elsewhere, he said. ``If you're not growing, you're dying.''

Donald Klepper-Smith, director of research with Scillia, Dowling & Natarelli, a New Haven-based business services firm, said the weak economy and globalization of corporate operations could help union efforts in a variety of occupations.

As companies send more work -- including white-collar jobs -- overseas, U.S. workers will feel threatened, Klepper-Smith said. He wonders whether they'll turn to unions for protection.

Bird, at the Employment Policy Foundation, isn't so sure.

Unions have strong niches in certain industries, but national and global forces are working against them, he said.

``Folks in organized labor are working hard to change that,'' he said. ``But the trend is not likely to reverse any time soon.''